Movie Review: The Wolfman (2010)

It's fitting that the studio (Universal) that first brought us the classic movie monsters of Frankenstein (or Frankenstein's monster if you want to get technical), Dracula, The Mummy and, of course, The Wolfman should bring us the latter again in this re-telling of the tale of how a man finds his inner beast (so to speak).

Joe Johnston, of Jumanji and Jurassic Park III fame (and who will direct the upcoming Captain America movie), is behind the camera for The Wolfman and filling the screen is a talented bunch of actors including Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Hugo Weaving, and Emily Blunt. The time period is well captured — the clothes, the buildings, the manner of speaking. All the ingredients are there, it would seem.

However, there's something strangely bland and uninteresting about this particular take on the classic character, something which is only intermittently livened up by an odd chase/action sequence here and an intense exchanging of dialogue there (the latter almost always involving Hopkins). But for every scene that's exciting or interesting or attention-grabbing, there are a few more that are the exact opposite and unfortunately they are too frequent and prolific just to ignore.

For anyone familiar with horror movies, the story of The Wolfman shouldn't be unfamiliar but just in case you need reminding, or want to know how much the story's been changed for this particular version, the plot is as follows: Upon his return from America after the death of his younger brother, Lawrence Talbot seeks to investigate how his brother was mysteriously and brutally murdered by an unknown attacker. During his hunt he gets bitten by what appears to be a werewolf and before long finds out his healed wound isn't just a weird coincidence. Now he has to deal with being a werewolf, or rather The Wolfman, and escaping capture and death from the locals who are baying for blood.

Article Author: Ross Miller

I am a film critic and blogger, and have been so since late 2007, going from starting my own movie review website, Movie World (which is still running), and then moving on to writing for various movie blogs.

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